Mayor's Comments from August 20, 2007

        I am sorry to say goodbye to an old friend, someone who I have gotten to know over the years ... at first at my days as a fire trustee and later as a trusted friend and sometimes an advisor or confidant.

        As he watched over his flock of firefighters (and sometimes called Padre), he also was on call whenever the city needed his service.Because of that we must say thank you. So we say goodbye to Dave Haley and wish him and his family well in Skokie.  They are very lucky to have this "god's messenger."

        As you probably know West Chicago is out of the grips of the water commission, and thanks are in order ... to both State Representative Randy Ramey and State Senator John Millner, for taking up our fight in Springfield.  Early on as your acting Mayor, I called for a meeting with these legislators to outline a plan to rid this commission for the taxpayers of our City.

        We tried before under former Mayor Fortner to exclude us from this commission by taking the high road and asking for their blessing and we were turned down. Between our City Administrator, City Attorney, Treasurer and myself, we instituted a game plan of having tandem bills in the house and the Senate, and succeeded by using this tactic. Thank you all for help on this matter on behalf of all West Chicagoans'.

Mike Kwasman 8/20/07